Hungry Sunshine
by yaba
Summary: {Post-Lost Son.} Trying to concentrate on something positive caused her to remember the last time she occupied this hammock…


Hungry Sunshine

Disclaimer: Don't own anything.

Rating: PG-13

Spoiler: Lost Son

Pairing: Tim/Calleigh

A/N: "How's it going to be" by Third Eye Blind. This is my way of getting over denial.

The grass shimmered with unidentifiable green. The sun filled the backyard with inescapable shine and for a second she felt as if it would engulf the entire house pretty soon. The wind blew in ocean air and she inhaled deeply, feeling the agreeable contrast between the salted air and the smell of her coffee.

It didn't energize her however, it only made her weaker, hanging by a thread of appreciation for little things, and she turned her head away from the sun and moved her hips so the hammock would sway more actively. It seemed everything was lazy today, except the sun, which was becoming irritating but she didn't want to move.

Closing her eyes, she attempted to forget the last 24 hours, but they still made it their priority to haunt her thoughts. She remembered distinctly being in the ballistics lab when she was paged.

Horatio was the unfortunate barer of bad news, and not just any bad news, the worst.

_"You paged me H." _

_"Yeah, Calleigh, I need you to come to the jewelry store. We have a situation." _

_"What kind of situation?" _

_"The deadly kind." _

Thinking back to it now, Calleigh wondered if her boss was purposely being so cryptic, but when she just heard him say that, clarity was the only thing present in her mind. She understood immediately what he was trying to say. Why he called her, not Eric, why his voice was so subdued and quizzical.

Taking a sip of coffee, she closed her eyes, trying to escape the burning sensation that was fighting its way to the surface. She told herself she wouldn't cry until it was appropriate. She didn't care if that sounded sociopathic or just plain absurd. She knew herself well enough that if she let her guard down for one second, consequences would be more than tragic.

Somehow, as soon as those thoughts entered her mind, the sensation of impending tears disappeared as quickly as it came, and she felt even more drained than before.

Trying to concentrate on something positive caused her to remember the last time she occupied this hammock…

I'm only pretty sure that I can't take anymore,  
Before you take a swing, I wonder what are we fighting for,  
When I say out loud, I want to get out of this, I wonder,  
Is there anything I'm going to miss, I wonder

"You got the beer?"

"Aha." She nodded and handed him a Corona.

"Excellent." He murmured, but instead of taking the bottle, he pulled her toward him, and somehow managed to keep them both on top of the hammock without it collapsing underneath their combined weight.

Calleigh felt completely unbalanced when Tim planted his lips softly on hers, caressing her lower lip with his tongue. Blond hair spilled all over them in a bright halo, and Calleigh laughed when they withdrew from each other.

" One of these days I'm going to take you coral diving." He said after a few minutes of compatible silence.

Calleigh looked at him quizzing, arching her eyebrow in thought, " well that was random." She added.

"It wasn't random." Tim pulled her beside him again, wrapping his arms around her, and tucking her head underneath his scruffy chin.

"Was too." Calleigh teased back in a childish voice.

" No, what's random is you coping with a hard ass like me."

Where we used to laugh, there's a shouting match,  
sharp as a thumbnail scratch,  
a silence I can't ignore,  
Like. . The hammock by the doorway we spent time in, Swing empty,  
don't see lightning like last fall when it was always about to hit me, I wonder

Calleigh knew he meant it as a joke, but to her his voice sounded all the more serious because of that.

"Don't say that." She warned.

"Ok." He said sarcastically, " Next time I'll lie and say I'm the perfect boyfriend."

Calleigh giggled and took a sip of beer, careful not to spill any on Tim's t-shirt, "Now, I didn't say you should go to an extreme but…"

Tim rolled his eyes and brushed the pallid skin of her chin with his thumb, " Then I love you wouldn't be appropriate right now?"

Calleigh's smile evened dramatically, "I can make exceptions."

Want to get myself back in again,  
The soft dive of oblivion.  
Want to taste the salt of your skin  
The soft dive of oblivion, oblivion

Glancing at the bottom of her coffee cup, Calleigh didn't even notice that this vivid memory evoked emotions she was trying so hard to compress. The dam was effectively unleashed and Calleigh set the coffee cup on the floor besides the white hammock.

It swayed methodically, lazily, and every once in a while escaped shade and taunted the fast approaching sunshine. Calleigh hoped the brightness of the day would swallow her all together so she could at least have one moment of uninterrupted peace.

It felt strange to be completely and utterly alone at this trivial moment in the late afternoon, and yet at the same time it felt so natural that she didn't want to move an inch or breathe in more deeply, so not to break the moment.

Wiping the stray tears streaked with mascara from her rosy cheeks, she closed her eyes and envisioned Tim bursting through the door and screaming, "Honey I'm home." Like he usually would if his day had been jovial.

This caused less tears to drown her cheeks and more sparkle in her green eyes. Breathing in a little more deeply this time, Calleigh opened her eyes and stared at the ring on her finger. Taking it off she stopped halfway and bit her lip; she couldn't do it just yet.

If she took off the beautiful engagement ring that would have bound her and Tim to each other in three months she'd finally have to admit what was really happening. Tim was gone; the funeral would be in a couple days, she'd make arrangements and call his parents if Horatio hadn't already.

Life would continue on without him, and there would even be cases where victims would slightly resemble him or his fatal wound, and what bothered Calleigh the most was that she wasn't sure if she wanted to live in a world without her fiancé.

Hearing the phone ring inside, Calleigh stood up quickly, mentally wondering where all this energy came from, but not caring enough to question herself. As she stood up, she hadn't noticed that her ring had fallen from her finger, and through the whole of the hammock, right into the coffee cup.

A sunray reflected off the emerald and the entire cup shimmered with unidentifiable green…

How's it going to be  
When you don't know me, any more  
And How's it going to be


End file.
